I am an entrepreneur and communications expert from Salt Lake City, founder of Snapp Conner PR, and author of Beyond PR: Communicate Like A Champ The Digital Age, available at http://amzn.to/1AO0PxX. I am also a frequent author and speaker on Business Communication. The opinions I express (especially when tongue in cheek) are entirely my own. My newsletter is the Snappington Post, available at http://bit.ly/1iv67Wk

New Research: 2014 LinkedIn User Trends (And 10 Top Surprises)

How do you use LinkedIn? Chances are, your favorite uses (especially if you’re a power user) involve the off-brand ideas and innovations the company doesn’t tell you about and the majority of casual users don’t know. On that front, I reported in October on the 2013 research of LinkedIn consultant and expert Wayne Breitbarth in the most read Forbes article here.

Today Breitbarth has provided me with a 2014 update as an exclusive to Forbes Entrepreneurs. The new research comes on the heels of LinkedIn’s Q1 earnings results. In its official statement LinkedIn reports a total user base of 300,000,000 worldwide and revenue from its Premium Subscriptions of $95.5 million. This is an increase of 46% over Q1 2013 (and 20% of total revenue, a percentage that remains consistent for the first quarters of both 2013 and 2014).

LinkedIn expert Wayne Breitbarth

As for Breitbarth’s findings, however, there are several elements in his 2014 research that may be a surprise. Here are his initial thoughts for Forbes readers as he summarizes the newest results:

1. 41% of people now report 500+ connections, up from 30% in 2013. Of course this number should continue to rise over time; however a full 15% now have more than 1,000 connections, which is nearly double last year’s result of only 8%. “People are starting to get that connections on LinkedIn are the ‘gas in the tank’ of their networking efforts (and the equivalent of high octane type of gas in its ability to help you connect efficiently with your target audience),” he says.

2. The percentage of respondents who are paid members–16%–is downfrom the result of 18% for last year. (It is interesting to compare this survey result of number of respondents subscribing to LinkedIn’s reported totals of percentage of revenue from paid subscribers–20%– in both Q1 2013 and Q1 2014). From Breitbarth’s perspective the 2% drop in subscribing percentage could be a result of LinkedIn’s huge year-to-year growth overall, he speculates, and could be a function of the “newbies” not yet running into the LinkedIn pay wall with the offer of features that might be worth paying for yet (such as seeing more results in “Who’s Viewed My Profile” or gaining extra filters for use in advanced people and company search).

3. Forty eight percent of respondents were spending more than two hours a week on LinkedIn last year.This year the number rose a full 10%. This is a good sign, Breitbarth says. “I doubt folks will spend more time on LinkedIn because they have nothing better to do,” he remarks. “I believe it means the time is probably paying off for more people, and thus they are wiling to spend more time on the site every week.” In fact the percentage of people spending 7 or more hours a week on LinkedIn rose from 11% to 18%, Breitbarth said.

4. Twenty-five percent still don’t know about the settingthat allows them to hide their connections. This is despite the warning Breitbarth and I provided in our popular January article about the top LinkedIn mistakes most people continue to make. This is a fairly important distinction for a number of higher-level executives and people who choose to use LinkedIn for competitive research or to connect with competitors for other good reasons that Breitbarth has covered before. (Listen up, people!)

5. Groups are falling from favor. Maybe this is the result of SWAM (Site Wide Automated Moderation) or perhaps too much spam (the issue LinkedIn reports that its side wide moderation policies are trying to address). We are not sure. However, Breitbarth notes that when he asked respondents a year ago about their favorite features, 60% scored Groups as one of their favorites. This year, when he broke the question into the related queries of “Posting and/or participating in Group discussions” (42%) and “Searching for people in Groups” (26%) the scores were nowhere near the level of reactions users were providing just one year ago.

6. Only 16% are in the maximum number of groups allowed (50). This is a result that amazes Breitbarth: “It shows that most people still don’t get the benefits of being in Groups even if you are not involved in the discussions, such as the ability to direct message fellow group members, and the ability to help your search rankings and ability to be found within groups.” “I would be in 500 groups if they’d let me,” he says.

7. Posting individual status updates as a favorite feature rose 10% to 39%. This is the best marketing feature on LinkedIn, Breitbarth maintains, as long as you do it correctly. (He reports his further thoughts on that issue in his related article here.)

8. Who’s Viewed Your Profile remains the #1 feature for the second year running with 76% of respondents picking it as a favorite feature. With the new filtering ability LinkedIn added several months ago this feature should remain at the top of the list.

9. Company page usage jumped from 24% to 57%. “It is crazy to not create and use a LinkedIn company page,” Breitbarth maintains, particularly since Google generally reports LinkedIn company pages within the top 1-2 pages of results. This is “free money” for small- to mid-size companies. Reports one respondent: “I am a self-employed housecleaner, pet sitter and house sitter. Many of the clients I have worked for in the last five years tell me that they found my LinkedIn site while doing a Google search and were interested in meeting me in person. I am also grateful for the LinkedIn recommendations. It is not uncommon for someone to tell me that after viewing my LinkedIn profile and reading the recommendations that this is a deciding factor on whether or not to contact me and/or use my services.” Another respondent reported obtaining 42% of their business leads in 2013 from LinkedIn.

10. Perceived importance of LinkedIn continues to grow. A full 70% of users give the site a 4 or 5 rating (out of 5), up 9% from users’ responses last year. Job seekers and recruiters posted highly favorable experiences:

“I have found by linking with C-Level executives, they reach out to me, or others like me, to fill positions within their organizations.”

“The company I recently worked for closed Jan. 30, 2014, with no warning. I got on LinkedIn with a small announcement that I was looking for work and also added that to my profile headline. I started looking through my contacts for who’s connected to whom. At the top of the screen a name came up as being a second connection and that the person was in RF Electronics (something I’m interested in learning about). I sent an invite to connect, he accepted, and emailed me later that he read my profile and needed someone with my skills. Five days after the company I was working at closed, I started my new and very exciting job.”

“My LinkedIn profile has been printed out and used during an interview instead of the company looking at my resume. I have made so many connections and learned so much about various industry trends via LinkedIn Groups. The introduction feature helped me get connected to various people. Via the company pages, I was able to figure out who would be interviewing me and was able to relate my background to their published LinkedIn background.”

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Very interesting and informative post! “ 5.Groups are falling from favor” I think is a result of users being able to share updates immediately to their networks when compared to starting most group discussions, you will have to submit & wait for same to be reviewed and this may take some time if it is a very large group. I prefer to share status updates since it fosters more interaction with my network, produces more profile views from 2nd and 3rd level connections and also leads to increased connection requests.

This is even a trend with LinkedIn Open Networkers who I believe are in the 18% of people spending 7 or more hours a week on LinkedIn. Most share their updates e-mail addresses on the home page instead of in group discussions which usually reaches a wider network. Thanks Cheryl for this very insightful post. Cheers!

Brigette, thanks for adding your additional insights to this dialogue. A great thought, as the need to wait for updates to be moderated (as in the SWAM situations) appears to be a big detriment for a growing number of participants. Appropriate status updates appears to in some respects offset that concern. Thanks for your note. Best regards, Cheryl

Great post with great data and insights… Love to see that! I have always called LinkedIn a place where people “Do Social the Lazy way” by creating an account then not coming back until they need a job or hire someone. These numbers are exciting to see as I think the trend of engagement and building relationships is catching on! I am a big believer in the power of social selling and LinkedIn can be a major game changer for many sales individuals! Thanks for this great post!

I want share my experience here. I decided to pay for Linkedin services and use it for job hunting.

The problem is that in at least 50% of the relevant jobs I found, I was redirected to the company’s website and had to fill up electronic forms in order to apply. After doing that for some time I canceled Linkedin because it is pointless to pay for it and not be able to apply directly.

They love to market it saying “Pay and get on top of the list” which is a lie since you are simply redirected and have to sign up on the website of the company that posted the job.

After this disappointment I canceled the subscription and gave them a feed back about my experience. For my surprise 2 weeks later I get an email (electronic of course, not real people) with a discount offer asking me to use their services again, my feed back was never replied.

I only use it now for discussions because helping job seekers are not their strength.

Leo – I’m sorry to hear about your experience, especially since others have reported such good outcomes. Sounds like the paid services weren’t worth it for you – but Wayne Breitbarth (and others) may have some other inputs for you as to how to get the most out of LinkedIn’s free offerings. And thanks for taking the time to respond. Best regards, Cheryl

Excellent post Cheryl. Regarding #4, hiding connections limits the information that the recipient of a connection request has to see how the invitee’s network inters with their own. Sometimes whether or not I accept a connection request on LinkedIn depends on how we are connected which can cast the swing vote.

Rick, personally I don’t hide connections (in part for the very reason you’ve mentioned). It’s good for people to think through all the implications. For example, when someone is shopping for PR, by looking at who else the person has connected with recently I have a better knowledge of who else they’re also considering, which is extremely helpful. But I do turn off the “auto alerts” that send an email to the universe about any update to the profile, anniversary announcements, etc. Those are obnoxious and even a violation of privacy in my opinion. Thanks for your note! Regards, Cheryl

This piece reads like nothing more than a paid advertisement for LinkedIn disguised as journalism. All the quotations and analysis are from Breitbarth, a man who benefits financially from the growth of LinkedIn. Ms. Conner, did you really feel you were doing a service to your readers by extolling all the wonders of LinkedIn and not addressing any complaints, such as LinkedIn’s practice of secretly accessing all of its users’ address books? [Note: I don't know if that questionable practice is still going on, but the fact it was happening less than a year ago should have made you pause before launching into this shameless promotion.]

Readers who found this to be a good article might be interested in also reading several pieces from PBS and Forbes about the somewhat less-than-ethical things LinkedIn is doing to its members: